Grooming a Bernedoodle
Grooming a Bernedoodle can be a challenging task if you’ve never done it before. Even if you’ve groomed other dogs, Bernedoodles have a unique coat that could make grooming slightly different. But don’t worry, there are plenty of steps you can take to make the experience easier on you and your furry friend. Read on for our 9 easy steps for grooming a Bernedoodle.
Game Plan
The first thing you’ll want to do is have a game plan. First you’ll want to decide if you want to groom your dog inside or outside. There are pros and cons to each approach.
Grooming inside means you can give your Bernedoodle a bath regardless of the weather outside. It also means that you’ll be in a smaller space making it easier to secure your puppy and also avoid any distractions. On the other hand, you could be in for getting your bathroom a little wetter than normal from spray and splashing and furrier from the trimming.
By bathing outside, you don’t have to worry about splashing, spraying or fur getting everywhere. But you do need to consider the weather. If it’s excessively hot or cold or windy, you should avoid grooming outside. You should also consider the potential for mud and tracking that mud back into your house.
If you’re wondering how to groom a Bernedoodle outside, it’s best to do it on a cement back patio away from distractions, although the driveway is another good option if your puppy is a good listener. If you choose the outside approach, we highly recommend that before you get started, you get a hose and wash off any dirt, sand, grass etc from the surface you plan to wash your pup.
Now that you’ve decided where to groom your Bernedoodle, it’s time to get all of the material ready that you’ll need to address grooming a Bernedoodle. This way you’ll have everything at the ready so you’re not running around looking for items while your hands are soaked or covered in fur as you’re grooming your pup. Here are the items you’ll want before you start any grooming.
- Water source
- Treats
- Soap/shampoo
- Towels
- Nail clippers/Grinder
- Safety Scissors
- Hair Clippers
- Tarp (optional for outside)
- Comb/brush
- Toothbrush
- Blow dryer
- Leash
- Ear Cleaner
- Waste basket for fur/hair
- Paw Pad softener
- Small bucket or bowl
Finally, for yourself, you’ll want to wear clothing that you don’t mind getting wet or covered with fur and hair. If you have long hair, we recommend you put it in a bun or ponytail for the same reasons just mentioned.
Setting Up
With all your materials ready, the first thing you’ll want to do is make sure your dog feels safe and comfortable in the space you choose for grooming. To do this, make sure you offer praise, give pets and give treats. You’ll not only want to do this before the grooming process, but throughout, especially if you notice your Bernedoodle getting anxious or uncomfortable.
Now that you’ve gotten your Bernedoodle comfortable, you’ll now want to leash your pup so that they stay in your designated grooming area. If you’re inside, just being in the bathroom may be fine such that you don’t need a leash. If you’re outside, you may want to tether your pup via a leash to a sturdy object.
Brushing
With everything in place, you’ll want to start by brushing out your Bernedoodle. Focus on the head or hind area first and move to the other end. You’ll want to take short strokes with a grooming comb so that you get any knots and lose hair out. You may feel like you’re pulling somewhat hard on your dog’s coat. This is expected because of the waviness of the coat Bernedoodles inherit from Poodles, but as long as they aren’t yelping there’s no cause for concern. It’s better to get the knots out now before attempting to give a bath.
When you’re brushing near your dog’s head, be especially careful to avoid their eyes and be gentle with their ears. Similarly, be gentle in other sensitive areas such as their belly, tail and paws.
As you brush out your Bernedoodle, check the brush often. As you see fur and hair accumulate on the brush, pull it out and deposit it in your waste basket. Also pay attention to the difference in your puppy’s coat between the areas you’ve already brushed and the areas that haven’t. You’ll notice that the brushed areas are a bit fluffier, softer and perhaps not matted down like in the areas that you haven’t gotten to yet.
You’ll know you’re done brushing when all of your dog’s fur is looking fluffy and all of the knots are out.
If at any time your dog is starting to get freaked out or anxious, you should stop what you’re doing. Give praise to your pup, provide pets and some treats as well before you continue.
Clipping
Now that you’ve brushed out your dog, it’s time to get out the clippers. The quieter your clippers, the better since the quiet clippers should help your dog stay calm. Make sure you set your clipper’s guard to an appropriate length, especially if they’re new. You’ll want to trim a small swath on your pup’s hind quarters to make sure you’ve got your trimmer set to the right length
You absolutely do not want to trim your dog’s coat too short. Keep it at least an inch long so that your puppy’s skin remains protected from the elements, especially from the sun. A dog’s coat that’s too short could expose them to heat stroke, sun damage to their skin and reduces protection against bug bites.
You’ll want to use the clippers on your Bernedoodle from the neck down, but stop at the tail. Use the clippers in one direction, going “with the grain” of your puppy’s coat. Take your time and make small strokes, especially when you get to the legs. Remember to stop often if your puppy is fidgeting or getting anxious. Reinforce the fact that this process is ok by giving them pets, praise and treats.
One thing we recommend is to avoid using the clippers on your dog’s belly. Not only is that a sensitive area, but for Berne Doodles, hair doesn’t really grow that long on that part of the body, so there’s really no need to clip there.. A quick sanitary cut with safety scissors should suffice.
Trimming
Now that you’ve gotten through the clipping process, it’s time to trim the more delicate areas of your puppy. Start with your puppy’s tail. Hold the tail with one hand and feel for where it ends. If you’ve never really touched your dog’s tail before, don’t be surprised if it’s a lot thinner than the fur makes it out to be. Trim to the desired length with the safety scissors, but remember not to cut the hair down any shorter than an inch.
Now move on to the head by trimming the back and top of your dog’s head. As you get closer to the top of the head, put one hand above the eyes (acting like the brim of a baseball cap) to shield your dog’s eyes from falling hair. For eyebrows, you probably only need to trim strays and won’t want to take too much off. Again, shield your dog’s eyes with your hand as you cut to avoid hair getting into them, but also to avoid having your dog get poked if they make any sudden movements.
The snout can be trimmed carefully on either side. Again, like the eyebrows, this area shouldn’t need too much trimming but make sure to shield your dog’s eyes for the reasons identified above.
Finally, you can move onto the ears. Your Berne Doodle’s ears are long and floppy, but not as long as they may appear just by looking at them. What we mean is that the fur will extend below the actual ear. Use your hands to feel for where the ear ends, then stand off at least one inch. Then you can trim the desired amount of hair.
Bonus: Take a look at your dog’s paw pads. Do they look overgrown with fur? If so, you may want to trim that excess fur. The reason is that unlike humans, dog’s don’t really sweat through their skin. In order to regulate their body temperature, they pant. The exception is that their paw pads have sweat glands and can help cool them. So to assist in that, it’s important to keep the fur by their pads clean.
Before starting the bathing portion of the grooming process, up any off the fur and hair you just cut and dispose of it in your waste basket. This ensures the area is clean and will prevent stray hair and fur from sticking to your dog after you wash them.
Congratulations! Your dog is brushed and trimmed, but we’re not done yet. He still needs his bath.
Bathing
Before covering the bathing process, it’s important to note that you do not want to over wash your dog. Dog’s really only need to be bathed approximately once per month. The reason is that their natural oils protect their skin and their coat. Over-washing can displace that oil leaving the skin to get dried and damaged. So remember to bathe your Berne Doodle sparingly especially if they already have some skin issues.
As far as bathing goes, some dogs love water and others… not so much. Cooper is more on the “not so much” side of things. What we found is that to help reduce his anxiety, we avoid using a spray (like a shower head or a hose spray) to wet his fur.
Instead, we use a bucket when we bathe him inside or we use the hose without the spray attachment. With the bucket approach, we fill it up and then slowly and gently pour it over his head and back. To get to his belly, we use our hands to scoop water and rub it on what little fur he has in those areas.
Conversely, if we’re outside and use the house without an attachment, we hold the hose over his head and back until his fur is thoroughly soaked. You can put your thumb over a portion of the hose to get a slightly more powerful stream in order to get the underside of your dog wet.
A fair note before you begin, your dog can and will instinctively shake their bodies to get the water off, so prepare to get a little wet!
With your dog wet, you can now grab your dog’s preferred shampoo, squeeze a generous amount into your hand and begin to lather your dog. We like to begin with the legs since that’s probably the most challenging part of washing Coopy. He tends to pull away when we wash his legs, so we try to calm him down with treats after we lather up each leg. The best approach to the leg washing is to slide your hand up and down the leg like you’re polishing a pole. Apply the same technique to the tail and then it’s on to the body.
When you wash your Bernedoodle’s back, make sure you lather them up by working their fur with your fingers so that the soap gets down to the roots of their hair. You want to pretend like you’re giving them a massage all over their back, sides and chest. Make sure to be generous with the shampoo you’re using to ensure your dog is completely lathered.
Move onto the head, being careful not to get soap in your pup’s eyes. Get under the chin, around the snout and the ears. When you wash your dog’s ears, put them between your hands and gently rub. Try not to get much water inside their ears as this can lead to ear infections and a host of issues for your pup. Less is more with the ears.
Now it’s time for the rinse. Let us stress that you can’t rinse enough. The last thing you want to do is leave soap in your dog’s fur because it will unfortunately dry their skin out quickly. When you rinse, just pouring water from a bucket or letting water run from a hose won’t be enough. Similar to how you massaged your dog to get the shampoo in, coupled with water, you’ll want to massage again to ensure you get all the shampoo out. Double and even triple check that you got all of the soap off your pup.
When you get to their head, once again, shield their eyes as you rinse all the soap out of their fur. And again be careful to not get water in their ears when you rinse those.
Drying
Now it’s time to dry your dog. The first thing we recommend you do is let your dog shake themselves off. Your dog will do this instinctually, but it will also make the rest of the drying process a bit easier. Once they’ve given themselves a shake or two, you can grab a towel and start to rub them dry. Rub the tower over them as though you were drying your own hair. Get the moisture out as best you can with the towel.
Once you’ve gotten them dried off with the towel, we recommend using a dog blow dryer. You don’t want to let your dog stay wet because they could end up getting a little stinky. Who hasn’t heard of the “wet dog” smell? The other reason you don’t want to leave them wet is that it can make them prone to fungus and infections of their skin as well as lead to numerous matts with the coat that Berne Doodles have.
If you don’t have a dog blow dryer (it only uses cool air to dry the dogs fur) you can use your own hair dryer but be cautious as you don’t want to use a hot setting on the hair dryer as that could potentially dry their skin out and cause issues that we described above. Instead, put the hair dryer on a low, cool setting. At the same time, grab your brush and comb your Bernedoodle through as you blow dry. This process may be a little slow, but you’ll ensure you get all the moisture out of their fur and off their skin while making them soft and fluffy.
For the next steps, we recommend you perform them away from all the water that just got everywhere from the bath.
Nail Trimming/Grinding
Now that your puppy is squeaky clean, you can tend to their nails. Bernedoodles have relatively thick nails but they can get sharp if left untreated. This can lead to discomfort for your pup and cause damage to your home and furniture.
Clipping nails isn’t something to take lightly. It can be very painful and scary if you cut them too short. Think about what it’s like if you’ve ever cut a nail too short. That same pain and discomfort is what your puppy will experience. Further, if you cut something called the quick, you can cause your pup to bleed. This bleed can be extremely difficult to stop, so again, be very careful.
When you clip their nails, you’ll want to clip just the tips. Take a hold of your puppy’s paw and gentle press on their pad to expose the nail. From the side of the nail, look for the quick, which is the pinkish portion of the nail, which contains both nerves and blood vessels (this is much easier to do in dogs that have light nails like Cooper). Ensure that you do not cut anywhere near the quick when you trim the names. Ensure you cut the nails from top to bottom (rather than from side to side). Doing so side to side could cause damage to the nail.
It will take some getting used to for both you and your pup, but you’ll get the hang of it. Approach the situation cautiously and provide treats as necessary.
Once the nails are cut, you can now use the grinder to smooth them out. Gently press the grinder against each nail one at a time. Grind just enough that you get rid of the roughness. You’re not trying to grind the nail down very much; only to get smoothness.
And now that the nails are cut, you may want to apply a pad balm to your Bernedoode’s paw pads. Cooper’s paw pads tend to get dry and get rough. The pad balm helps to sooth the paw pads, moisturizing them and softening/smoothing them up.
Ear Cleaning
Checking your Bernedoodle’s ears is an important part of the grooming process. You’ll want to look into each of them to make sure there are no issues like excessive earwax, redness or other issues. With a damp cloth, gently wipe each ear. You can gently wipe the internal rim of the ear with a finger, but don’t get in any further than half an inch to avoid causing injury. You can also purchase an ear cleaning liquid. Dogs’ ears actually have a sharp angle in them, making them hard to keep clean, so a product that cleans and keeps clear the wax can be very helpful. Be sure to read the directions on the ear cleaner as some recommend soaking it up with cotton while others just have you massage and leave in the ear.
Teeth Cleaning
One of the last steps is giving your pooch a tooth cleaning. Grab your doggy toothbrush and doggy toothpaste. Get some toothpaste on the brush and start brushing. You’ll want to make sure you get the inside and outside sides of the teeth. Most dogs do not enjoy this part so it might take some effort but you should be able to lift up their snout and clean as best as you can.
Finishing Up
The very last step is to give your pup a few sprays from a dog deodorizer spray. Although the shampoo will have your dog smelling good, going above may be desirable, especially if you needed to use a medicated shampoo that didn’t have much of a scent. There are dog safe sprays you can find that will have your Bernedoodle smelling clean and fresh.
You’re now fully equipped with the tools for grooming a Bernedoodle and leave them smelling and looking squeaky clean! Although there’s quite a bit of effort in the grooming process, it’s manageable if you set expectations, are organized before you begin and make your pup comfortable throughout the process. It may take a few tries to be fully comfortable with the process for both you and your puppy, but you can think of this process as a way to bond with your pup. Before you know it, you’ll be grooming like a pro in no time.
If you’re still unsure of taking on grooming yourself, you can always look for reputable breeders in your areas. We like to use Yelp to look for places, for example, in Boston.
